


All Those Secrets I Understood When We Were Older: A Profile of Lix Storm

by voodoochild



Series: Bandverse [4]
Category: The Hour
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Bel Rowley is more fabulous than you, Epistolary, Freddie Lyon is a fucking hipster, Gen, Hector Madden would really like you to stop talking about Kiki Delaine, Interviews, Lix Storm is a rock goddess, Marnie Madden is judging you so hard, Rock Stars, interviews tend to give everyone hives but it's awards season, what happens at the Chateau Marmont STAYS at the Chateau Marmont, why no there's no reason the entire damn band is sharing a hotel room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you were a girl who loved punk or rock and roll in the 80's, there was only one name that mattered: Lix Storm. [Bandverse AU, epistolary.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Article

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Challenge on Infinite Earths, day 19, "idols/rock stars". In Bandverse proper, this takes place approximately two months after [the word of your body](http://archiveofourown.org/works/624875) and references bits of that story. It also references events in the original bandverse story, [a new art for the people (you and me)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/570696/chapters/1022280), taking place approximately three years after the events of that story. There is a metric fuckton of bandverse backstory that I've dumped in here that only Em and I know about, but I think if you read the article and interview, you'll be able to keep up. Most of it is our interpretation of how canon events would translate into this 'verse.
> 
> All song titles that don't look familiar are fictional, co-owned by Em and myself. I'm not affiliated with Billboard Magazine, nor is this meant to be an accurate reproduction of one of their articles.

**“All Those Secrets I Understood When We Were Older”: A Profile of Lix Storm**  
 _Written by Naomi Westerman, for Billboard Magazine_

If you were a girl who loved punk or rock and roll in the 80's, there was only one name that mattered: Lix Storm. I was certainly no different. My Lix and the Wasters poster - you know the one, she's wearing those badass ripped Guess jeans and nothing else, staring defiantly into the camera over one shoulder - had a place of honor in my room in Elizabeth, New Jersey. I owned every album, from _Too Much Too Soon_ on vinyl to the bootlegged cassettes of the _Old News_ re-release (that Barcelona performance of "You Know You're Right"!). I grew up with Lix and like many girls my age, I saw her as my cool older sister. She was the one who took us drinking and talked about sex, who got revenge for us on all the boys who broke our hearts and taught us we could be just as badass at forty-seven as we were at twenty-seven.

Imagine, if you will, my reaction to being told that I'd be flying to Los Angeles to interview Lix Storm at the Chateau Marmont, upon the occasion of her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I don't think the Billboard offices have recovered from my screaming. I've met her before; I covered her return to the music scene at Glastonbury in 2006, and Adrian Richter and I reported on the American leg of the Double Definition tour, featuring a little band you may have heard of called The Hour. Backstage at Glastonbury, getting up to shake her hand, I tripped over my own feet and Bel Rowley sympathized with my reaction - apparently Lix gets that a lot. 

What doesn't happen a lot are all-access interviews like this one. I had expected a standard press junket type of thing, considering the Hall of Fame schedule is notoriously chaotic. Half an hour would be a reporter's dream. But upon speaking with Sissy Cooper-Ola, publicist for Paperclip Records and musician-wrangler extraordinaire, my heart just about stopped when I found out Lix would have an entire three hours (one of which was a recording session with the other members of The Hour) to chat with my undeserving self for this magazine.

Speaking of The Hour, it's become quite apparent nowadays that if you want one of them, you're going to get all of them. I'm met at the Chateau Marmont by Bel Rowley, who speaks so fondly of Lix Storm you half expect to find the woman behind you. You see, Miss Rowley - who is, as she insists, "Bel" to her friends and the occasional Jersey-girl journalist - is One of Us. She is a Lix Fan, who will take your arm and giggle over her own retelling of the first time she heard "180 G Itch" with a strawberry blush on her face (for the record, she was twelve, going through Lix's record collection and thankfully alone). She recounts how astonished she was to hear Lix's acoustic performance of "A Thousand Kisses Deep" at Randall Brown's Grammy presentation, how even she didn't know what her bandmate had planned. 

Her gushing is infectious and transparently due to her bandmate not being present to stop her:

_"She's so beyond talented, I know. It's nearly sickening. I knew she could play the piano - there was a party at someone's house in Belgravia, so long ago I'm sure she's forgotten all about it. I was … mmmm, nine? Possibly ten? Anyway, she was mucking about with what eventually became the chorus to 'Underwater Song', smack in the middle of this party, cigarette in her mouth and a glass of whiskey that just magically refilled itself. I think I scared her out of her wits when she looked up and I was sitting atop the piano, listening. And she hates that, utterly refuses to let anyone watch her composing. If you *knew* how many people have been kicked out of bed because she's made a breakthrough on a song!"_

Bel has dozens of these little snippets, if you listen hard enough - "the time Lix took me to Berlin", "this was when Lix was sleeping in caravans in Cairo", "oh, I remember her writing that one atop a bar napkin, one night in Glasgow". She is the Little Sister to Lix Storm we all wanted to be, but she's so sweet about it you can't even hate her. Similarly, one cannot hate Hector Madden, either, who greets us in the backyard of the Chateau Marmont bungalow in swim trunks and sunglasses, working on his tan. Yes, his abs and backside are just as excellent as the photographs would have us believe. He is still the charming bad boy we all swooned over in college - look, I spent $9.99 for a copy of _Italian Moonlight_ on iTunes and so did you, don't lie - but as he'll tell you himself, the Hour has been good for his jail record, even if he still teases his bandmates mercilessly.

Hector vividly recalls the Kiki Delaine scandal of nearly a year ago and Lix's reaction:

_"She never asked me what happened, not once. Not if I hurt Kiki, which I hadn’t, not about any of it. I'm sure she'd wave it off now, but back then, when even my girlfriend and the rest of my bandmates - stop making that face, Isobel Rowley, you bailed me out, but you did think I was responsible. Back then, Lix was the only one to believe me without question. Probably because I know she would have beaten me black and blue if I had ever treated a woman like that. She let me stay in her flat in New York and spent three weeks smacking me in the back of the head any time I tried to thank her. But that’s Lix, completely loyal to her friends, and I’m lucky to count myself among them.”_

Hector plays the reformed-delinquent-little-brother role well, I have to say, though his affection for Lix is genuine. He enthuses over the track he'll be playing for the Hall of Fame ceremony, spilling the beans on it, though the rest of the playlist has yet to be released - he'll be doing an acoustic cover of "Straight Down the Barrel", which he discusses with a true Lix Fan's abandon. For the record, he's a Purist - the song's about warfare and sacrifice and futility, no hidden sexual connotation (rather appropriately, he claims "when Lix writes songs about sex, you bloody well know it"). He does admit he'd wanted to sing "Louisville Slugger" but that Lix had asked him not to. One gets the sense that Ms. Storm gets what she wants, with this crowd.

I'm ushered into the bungalow proper, where I'm treated to a sight I'm sure many music fans would kill for: Lix Storm and Freddie Lyon, working out the guitar and bass lines to a song. I can’t describe it, it’s too disjointed, full of Lix’s switching tempo mid-chord and Freddie randomly breaking into snippets of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and making mad dashes to update his Spotify playlist. It is eventually going to be a new song, Marnie Sherman breathlessly informs us as she sets out some snacks, and I'm coveting her tres-chic vintage oxblood kitten heels. It shouldn't surprise anyone, but she cheerfully admits to being a stress baker, and well, this reporter doesn't argue with homemade cinnamon rolls. Marnie is the earnest, honest shot of sunshine to this snarky, bickering group, and she sits me down with some excellent jasmine tea she's brought from home and tells me that she doesn't know what the song will be called yet, but it's for the new album set to come out sometime next year.

_"This is really the first time we've all collaborated. Double Definition was Freddie, all Freddie, poor boy, and What We Found There had one of Lix's and one of Hector's, but I'm really excited for this new one. It's all Lix, really, she wanted more of a collaborative process, and it's going to turn out brilliant. She composes so differently than I do - you watch her and Freddie work like they're doing now, and it's so natural. I have to pick at a chorus a hundred times to get it right, and she just breezes right through it. Honestly, you could scream if she weren't so nice about it."_

Marnie's insertion into the group was a bone of contention amongst fans - she'd soften their sound, said many. She'd make them too pop, just another nostalgia act. To those people, I would like to ask - what album were you listening to? _What We Found There_ was so groundbreaking because of the addition of Marnie, taking front and center on vocals in "Do What I Like" and pounding out a fairly epic keyboard-and-drum solo with Bel on "Worthy Opponent". Marnie credits Lix with her acceptance into the group, noting she'd been seen as nothing more than Hector's latest fling before that performance of "Heart of Glass" at Coachella two years ago. I don't think there's a fan alive who hates that cover - two fantastic ladies, belting out a note-perfect Heart song and meshing their signature styles.

Freddie Lyon certainly loved the performance, as he tells me when they take a break from composing and Lix runs off to take a phone call before officially sitting down with me. As has been noted by many journalists in the business, Freddie keeps things startlingly honest. There are no rehearsed answers, no well-developed charm to fall back on with him. While the rest of the group has been in the business most of their respective lives, Freddie was a complete unknown until he joined Moneypenny at 24. And he’ll talk your ear off. He may take most of the session to arrive at an answer, but it's a straightforward one. He's also the best source of gossip about his bandmates, as he tells me about the first time he was introduced to Lix:

_"I met Bel at a party - one of Adam LeRay's, I was only there through the sufferance of a dear friend - and we launched Moneypenny a few months later, playing gigs in coffeeshops, dive bars, places you'd never expect Bel Rowley to be in, much less Lix Storm. Lix showed up at one of our gigs, just about scared the pants off of me. Honestly, I couldn't speak but for stammering, because Lix is a bloody goddess whom I've worshiped since I was nine, obsessively listening to Pillar to Post in my bedroom. The cheek on that woman, too, she pinched my arse and told me I was too pretty to be shamming at Gaslight-era Bob Dylan. She took us to the Intrepid Fox and we ended up drinking with a number of local gang members for free, in exchange for Lix autographing one of their motorbikes."_

There are countless music journalists who would argue with Lix’s assessment - Freddie Lyon makes an excellent Gaslight-era Dylan, especially when you talk him into doing an American Dylanesque mumble. Lix comes in during that anecdote, dressed in a pair of stunning designer tights and a men’s button-down shirt. She’s smoking one of her Gauloises - yes, she even smokes vintage cigarettes, Lix Storm is that much cooler than you - and ruffling Freddie's hair. She dismisses him with a smile, asking Marnie to make sure Hector doesn't eat all the cinnamon rolls. An unconventional mother-figure, to say the least, and she laughs when it's suggested. 

[Click through to continue to part two.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1003216/chapters/2021466)


	2. The Interview

**Storm** : What a horrendous thought, mother to that lot. Can you imagine, I'd never get anything done, between Hector teasing Bel and Freddie provoking Hector and Marnie getting dragged into the middle of it. It’s honestly like refereeing, most of the time. Hector swears he’s going to buy me a striped shirt and whistle for my next birthday.

 **Westerman** : And yet, according to all rumors, you are the voice of reason on the road for them.

 **Storm:** Darling, there is a difference between acting the voice of reason and playing den mother. I'm not saying there isn't a need for both, but Marnie is much better than I at the mothering. I'm a terrible influence, really.

 **Westerman:** Personally or professionally?

 **Storm:** Oh, personally. I couldn't possibly discuss any impact I may or may not have had on their careers. They're all so ungodly talented, I'm sure if I weren't around, it would have been someone else. You can see John Mayer and Sinatra in Hector, the bits of the White Stripes and the Decemberists in Freddie and Bel, the girl-groups in Marnie - much more than you can see any influence I might have had.

 **Westerman:** You've always refused to take credit for influencing others.

 **Storm:** With the ridiculous things I got up to in the eighties and early nineties? I'm flattered, really, that those four brilliant people credit me with some of their musical development, but considering I didn't even know what I was doing . . . I was writing what I wanted, playing what I wanted. I had the devil's own luck, is all. People responded to my music in a way I never could have predicted, or even hoped for. I thought I was going to be a modest little success, play some dive bars in London and around the UK. I just - Christ, I didn’t even own a car when we started. I’d hitch rides with people and play wherever we ended up.

 **Westerman:** You’d never even dreamed of making it bigger?

 **Storm:** Don’t we all? Of course I had a notion of playing Club 82, singing “Gloria” with Patti in some little bolthole, utterly shredding the guitar solo on some Clash or Zeppelin in front of an arena of people. I just didn’t expect any of it to actually happen.

 **Westerman:** Enter Randall Brown?

 **Storm:** Enter Randall sodding Brown. [laughs] I knew there would be one or two label types at that gig, but if you’d asked me which of the five people in the place I didn’t know was a record executive, I would not have picked Randall out of the lineup. He was - oh, you’ve read his Time profile, I told quite a bit of all that to Anderson. He was twitchy and sardonic and too brilliant for his own good, but what really set him apart was the wardrobe. You’re far too young to remember the fashion of the times, but he used to wear the most godawful skinny ties and suit jackets with shoulder pads. Tee shirts in Gaelic because he thought he was ironic. I swear he did it to try and make everyone forget he used to swan about in the seventies with eyeliner and a feathered jacket. I have photos, you know.

[Ed. Note: She does, in fact, [have photos](http://i43.tinypic.com/wrx894.jpg). They are eye-opening and fantastic, and I’ve been informed by Ms. Cooper-Ola that I am not, under any circumstances, to publish them. Sorry. You’ll all have to hit up Google Images and pray to the Internet gods.]

 **Westerman:** You’ve talked about the meeting, the late-night drinks at the Wah-Wah Hut and the now-legendary bet-

 **Storm:** Oh, god, the fuss that has been kicked up! Saying that they should strip him of the Grammy, that I should wait for the Hall of Fame - like a bet made almost thirty years ago under the influence of far too much whiskey and us taking the piss out of the industry somehow means we don’t care about recognition. And I’ve made myself quite clear, the Hall is an honor I don’t deserve, but Randall? That Grammy is validation for all the shit he’s turned into gold. Not just me, but any of the dozens of artists he's worked with. The Strokes, Amy Winehouse, Oasis, I could keep naming names, but you get the picture. I’d have stood on my head humming “The Guns of Brixton” if that’s what he wanted for his [bleeping] Grammy presentation, and if you ask any of them, they’d say the same.

 **Westerman:** Hearing that rendition of “A Thousand Kisses Deep” was quite a surprise, you have to admit. Especially coming from you.

 **Storm:** I think he expected me to welch, my comments about Sir Leonard’s repertoire are well-known, and I don’t play the piano for just anyone. I know, I’m a terrible loser, I really am. I got such a telling-off later for taking that bet seriously, but I’d do it again. Possibly not in those heels - have you ever tried to press foot pedals in five inch Via Spiga knockoffs?

 **Westerman:** I can’t say I have. I do know a good hundred fashion blogs that will have collective heart attacks over the admission you wear knockoffs, though.

 **Storm:** [laughs] They can’t have read the interview Sissy talked me into giving to Cosmo UK, then. Most of my clothing comes from vintage shops - and let me tell you, that hurts, calling items of clothing I wore the first time round “vintage” - and rubbish bins. And yes, occasionally I find the odd designer item I steal from photoshoots. [stretching out her legs to show off some unspeakably gorgeous tights] Abilletage. We were in Tokyo, just Bel and Marnie and I, to do some press for _What We Found There_ , you know the shoot I mean. We all begged to take the tights home, we’re shockingly girly if you get us all together, and the two of them are such clothing swots. I’d never wear anything noteworthy if it weren’t for Bel and Marnie.

 **Westerman:** It’s hard to picture, you know. You as a “girly-girl”. You are the woman who famously refuses to wear skirts or dresses to any public function.

 **Storm:** That drives me batty, it really does. That ridiculously old-fashioned idea that because I like trousers, I’m not feminine. I like lace, I like frills - I just feel so hideous and awkward in skirts and dresses. My mother used to insist upon it, dressing me like a [bleeping] doll. I left her and Surrey and never really wanted to look back. I don’t believe I’ve worn a dress in decades. 

**Westerman:** To go back to a previous comment, why do you hate people covering Leonard Cohen so much? And why go on and cover his music yourself? First, the Grammy performance, and now _Another Hotel Hallway_ , which has just been released in the States, has “Chelsea Hotel #2” on it, from your set at Le Bataclan in Paris. 

**Storm:** I’m shockingly possessive of artists I consider “mine”. I’m loathe to cover David Bowie or Patti Smith, purely because I adore them so much and consider everything they do to be perfect. Cohen is - [sighs] - Cohen is personal. Cohen was there for my discovery of sex, for my discovery of poetry, for my discovery of myself. I fell in love to Cohen, and thus with Cohen, and it feels that whenever I hear someone cover him, all of the soul, all of that poetry, just gets stripped away. “A Thousand Kisses Deep”? That was for Randall, pure and simple. I owed him that one. But that performance of “Chelsea Hotel #2” was extremely ill-advised. It was the closest I ever came to saying straight out to the idiot who broke my heart “[bleep] you, you ruined the best thing that could have ever happened to you”. I couldn’t get any of the rest of it out until _Pillar to Post_ , by then I’d calmed down a bit, but it was that same pure meanness I kept feeling. 

**Westerman:** So the long-speculated subject of _Pillar to Post_ is one person?

 **Storm:** Wicked girl, you know I won’t speak about that. It’s quite unfair to that person, and really, don’t you think I’ve done enough damage?

 **Westerman:** One could argue that that “meanness”, as you call it, on Pillar to Post was the reason it made such an impact. There was some foreshadowing on _Face First_ , with the Wasters. You’ve always had a bite to you, but “Dragon’s Teeth” and the chorus to “Warning Shot” seem like they belong more on _Pillar to Post_ than your work with the Wasters. 

**Storm:** “Dragon’s Teeth”, I’ll give you. “Warning Shot” - well, it doesn’t really apply. Not the way everyone thinks. I mean, yes, of course it’s about ultimatums, that repeating bit of “keep it up/I’ll fire a warning shot”, but it wasn’t just about one person. It was partly the band, the way Jerry wanted to stay hardcore punk and Max wanted to soften the sound a bit, and I just wanted to get drunk and play whatever came to mind. It was some of the problems with the label, they wanted longer tours and kept pushing me to be less of a frontwoman, more of a team player - god, Randall and I fought like hellcats, I thought he wasn’t defending me to the rest of the board, and he thought I was being a prima donna. And yes, there were some personal issues in there. But it’s not one of the straightforwardly personal ones, darling, sorry to burst your analogy.

 **Westerman:** You’ve spoken about most of the issues surrounding the breakup of the Wasters, but never about what made you split from Paperclip. Why -

 **Storm:** Why I walked out on an album mid-recording and refused to speak to Randall for over a decade? Everything we intend to say about that time in our lives has been said. 

[Ed. Note: Lix takes a moment to check her mobile, and she must have been reprimanded by Ms. Cooper-Ola, because she sighs and apologizes for her shortness. Not that I could mind, because Lix Storm has touched my hand. I’m getting her fingerprints tattooed on, and I’m not joking.]

 **Storm:** Apologies, darling. If you’ll recall from the Time interview, we both spoke about the Kendall expose, how much of it that little rat had actually gotten right. The split from Paperclip - well, it was a lot of factors. Randall frequently lost his temper, between the - the anger and the drugs, and I was drinking and doing various controlled substances myself. We simply couldn’t be around each other. It was absolutely bloody exhausting. 

**Westerman:** He says in his Time profile that very few people had known how much he was using. Did you have any idea?

 **Storm:** He was very good at hiding it, especially because the OCD was common knowledge. He could blame anything on that. He actually started on the heroin because it calmed him down. And I was stupid enough to think he’d gotten both the OCD and the addiction under control . . . I don’t think it’s a shock to anyone to hear we’d been rather definitively together, at that point. That’s all come out, between the assorted Grammy bollocks and the Time profile and the Hall of Fame and Hector being unable to keep his [bleeping] mouth shut. We’d been together, and it just got to be too much. I needed the clean break, and I think so did he. He needed to get clean. I needed to get my life straightened out, figure out who I was and what I wanted to be. [laughs] I’ve been on the other end, now, of someone needing that. It’s a bitch, really. I apologized profusely.

 **Westerman:** To him?

 **Storm:** To everyone. Mostly to him. He wouldn’t hear of it. We don’t really keep score - be impossible, really. We’re too vicious to each other for that. I just keep writing songs about him and he keeps on doing ridiculous interviews about our personal lives in retaliation.

 **Westerman:** There’s a rumor going around that he’ll be performing at your induction. Care to chime in?

 **Storm:** Randall? Perform? Darling, one has to get him either very drunk or very relaxed to see that, and it hasn’t happened in public for decades. I wouldn’t bet on it.

[Ed. Note: Hah. Haha. Lix Storm is either a very good liar or as surprised as she seemed to be on the night of the induction. Let’s just say that Randall Brown plays one hell of a blues guitar and can hold his own on classic-Clapton. Not to mention his Bono-inspired wardrobe, but if we get onto the fashionable members of The Hour, we’ll be here all week.]

 **Westerman:** Speaking of performances, talk a little bit about the last tour. During _Double Definition_ , all of you - Bel, Hector, Freddie, Marnie, yourself - you were all adamant on focusing on the group. The only songs you performed were the ones from the album or covers that included the whole band. But on this latest tour, for _What We Found There_ , nearly all of you have performed some of your solo songs, and it’s been more of a collective experience.

 **Storm:** It was frightfully awkward in the beginning, for me at least. The reason we kept _Double Definition_ so group-focused was that Hector and I kept being hounded to play our own stuff. I didn’t want to turn it into ‘Lix and the Hour’, because that would have been screamingly unfair to Bel and Freddie and Hector. And similarly, Hector didn’t want to be singing “Charm Offensive” every night. We spent hours bickering with the label - and not just Randall, but the rest of them - to make every bit of that tour exactly equal. Same tour buses, same hotel rooms, no special privileges for anyone. Whatever Freddie got - as the new kid, so to speak - was what I was going to get. 

On this tour for _What We Found There_ , we’re much more comfortable with each other, so we’ve relaxed the rules. No one’s getting shirty if the resident old lady decides to fly to the next show instead of slogging along on the tour bus. And really, I loathe tour buses, I’ve spent half my life on them. I will do nearly anything for a plane ticket and eight hours extra sleep in a five-star hotel room, and I refuse to apologize for it. Similarly, I won’t begrudge Bel for holding up rehearsal time because she’s decided to explore some small town she’s never heard of, or Freddie blasting Arcade Fire twenty-four hours a day if it helps him write another triple-platinum hit. That familiarity just bleeds into the concerts themselves - I adore getting to hear Hector play an acoustic version of “Wine to Water”, or Bel and Freddie break out “When You Lie”, or darling Marnie cueing up “Countryside Living”.

 **Westerman:** Might we hear some duets one of these days? Either yourself on, say, a Moneypenny song, or one of the others singing a Lix and the Wasters song?

 **Storm:** Do you know, Freddie’s begged me to duet with him on “Buzzkill”. The boy fancies himself man enough to tackle that Sambora riff, but I’ve told him his voice needs to break first. [laughs] I know, I’m terrible to him. Hector, too, who insists that if I don’t sing “Yesterday’s Tie” with him at least once, he’ll die of regret.

 **Westerman:** Hector told me he’s singing “Straight Down the Barrel” for your induction ceremony. Might we hear some other Lix songs from your bandmates?

 **Storm:** You just may. I honestly don’t know a thing about it. All they’ve told me is to show up - the only reason I knew about Hector is because he’d asked permission. The rest, if they’re singing any of my songs, haven’t bothered to ask, the ingrates. [laughs] No, don’t tell them I’ve called them that! I will be extremely flattered at whatever they perform.

 **Westerman:** Finally, I’ll end on a question you’ve said publicly you’re tired of being asked in the vain hopes of wheedling an answer out of you. Just who is the subject of “180 G Itch”?

 **Storm:** [groans] You are killing me here, do you know that? I’ve promised your editor I’ll be completely honest and answer all questions put to me in a polite manner, and now you’ve gone and asked me the worst question ever. I - fine. I’ll put the sodding mystery to rest. It’s Randall. First recording session at Paperclip, back when it was run out of his basement in Glasgow, the wretched man turned me down. [laughs] Do you believe that? I propositioned him - because really, any man who can match me shot for shot of shite whisky and manage to get me back to my hotel without any help whatsoever deserves it - and he turned me down flat. 

**Westerman:** I, wow, that really does put a spin on some of the lyrics. 

**Storm:** Oh, they’re excellently filthy, aren’t they? I thought I might be able to shame him into it, sort of a “look at what you’re missing out on”. I would like to tell my younger self that I was an idiot. You can’t dare Randall to do anything he’s set his mind against, it’s like pissing into the sodding wind. It took him about a year and a half later to finally take me up on the offer, the bastard.

Unfortunately, gang, any and all followup questions will have to wait, because my time with Lix is up. She got glamoured up, shot some excellent photos you’ll probably all be looking at after you read this article, kissed my cheek, and breezed out to another interview. 

[Further excerpts from this interview, including some behind the scenes video, can be found at billboard.com/video/interviews/storm-westerman-when-we-were-older.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unless here noted as a cover, all the songs listed are songs Em and I made up. I'd love to be able to link you to "Straight Down the Barrel" or "Things She Told Me" or "180 G Itch", but sadly, they only exist in our heads.
> 
> [You Know You're Right - Courtney Love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XlCuVlev60) (Lix was never as much of a hot mess as Courtney, but the rawness and arrangement is spot on.)  
> [A Thousand Kisses Deep - Leonard Cohen](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0j14GrB-u8) (This one was Lix, a piano, a glass of whiskey, and a cigarette. Lix should stop making bets with Scottish record producers in bars.)  
> [Heart of Glass - Lily Allen](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItxLwTh-uS8) (Marnie has a bit of Lily Allen in her, and the keyboard/guitar arrangement would be how she'd perform it. I suspect the performance with Lix was a tiny bit harder-edged.)  
> [Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Joshua Radin](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGzHEAxopm8) (Radin is one of the artists I think bandverse!Freddie sounds like. He'd also perform randomly in the middle of a crowd with just a guitar and a bowler hat. Incidentally, Lix has also covered the song, but Freddie's version gets more airplay.)  
> [Gloria/In Excelsis Deo - Patti Smith](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Sq3HL2OV8) (Lix adores Patti, and I think Patti would adore bandverse Lix in return. "Gloria" is also the most bandverse Lix/Bel song ever to exist, just saying.)  
> [Guns of Brixton - Calexico](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGTM2s9hfBU) (Calexico does my favorite cover of this song, the original, of course, is by the Clash. Randall dug the Clash - I don't think he ever forgave them for signing with MacLaren - and I'd buy this as one of his favorite songs by them.)  
> [Chelsea Hotel #2 - Leonard Cohen](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx83eIVkKyo) (This was probably around the mid-90's when Lix was running around Europe still angry with Randall, and he was busy detoxing in New York. Not that she knew he was there, at the time, and not that it would have mattered.)  
> [Let It Rain - Eric Clapton](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y86kDFaJ2h4) (This is the return-serve from Randall for Lix's Hall of Fame induction, because Randall does not sing in public, but if he has to, he'll play some Clapton. Think of this one as much more stripped-down, just him and an acoustic guitar.)
> 
> Assorted Notes:  
> \- "Anderson" is Anderson Cooper, who conducted the Time interview with Randall.  
> \- The photo of 70's punk Randall is, in fact, a tiny baby Peter Capaldi in his own punk days. Bless the man and bless whoever got this magnificent shot.  
> \- Abilletage tights are a thing. [A very gorgeous](http://blog.shop.abilletage.com/?eid=508562), [very cool](http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/40/35/a5/4035a50e79eef415fffd3abcef602d10.jpg) [thing](http://vysanthe.tumblr.com/post/42271772967/mademoiselle-iona-abilletages-new-tights). Lix is wearing the "Busk" tights in red.  
> \- _Pillar to Post_ is about Randall and Spain, mostly. Lix doesn't like admitting who she writes her songs about.  
>  \- The Kendall expose was Bill Kendall, a very ill-advised boyfriend of Bel's, who is a tabloid journalist in this 'verse, publishing all the sordid details of the Hour, whether they were true or not. Unfortunately, most of the dirt he dug up on Lix and Randall (and Bel, for that matter) was true.  
> \- The photoshoot pictures are from the Deborah Latouche shoot for _Private Lives_ , and I had to shriek and send them to Em as soon as I saw them because THAT is bandverse Lix.


End file.
